You Are Dumb, which is not a blog, posts new columns when it can manage to in these troubled Trumpian times. It is also a Twitter feed, @youaredumb, with content in a similar vein but much shorter. For a take on what a blog by me would be like, check out OLDNERD.

Free-Range Market

Here's the deal. You can be a company. You can be a Christian company. You can support causes that are important to you, even though it might be a controversial issue. You can give money to candidates. You can give a lot MORE money to SuperPACs. That's your Court-given right as a corporo-person.

But.

It I don't like what you support, I don't have to support you. And if other companies don't like what you support, they don't have to do business with you. And when these lumps come, and oh, they will come, you have to sit there and FUCKING TAKE YOUR LUMPS. You don't get to spin about it, and more importantly, you don't get to lie out of your deep-fried cloaca about it, the way Chik-Fil-A has been.

Here's the thing. The lexicographically-challenged fast food company has never been particularly shy about its fundamentalism. And they're certainly no stranger to dickish behavior, as putting "chik" into the search box here will reveal. But they tended to sit just under the line where people would feel guilty enough about their politics to stop going there. Well, no more. ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

"I think we are inviting God's judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at Him and say, 'We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage,' and I pray God's mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we have the audacity to define what marriage is about." - Chik Fil-A president D'n C-Athy, who, in another interview on the same subject, talked about how he was glad he was able to run his business on Biblical principles.

So there you have it. Chik Fil-A runs on Biblical principles, the Bible says to hate gay people and make sure they can't get married in a secular government, and we can all decide whether or not to eat there based on how we feel about that stance, right?

"The Chick-fil-A culture and service tradition in our restaurants is to treat every person with honor, dignity and respect – regardless of their belief, race, creed, sexual orientation or gender. We will continue this tradition in the over 1,600 Restaurants run by independent Owner/Operators. Going forward, our intent is to leave the policy debate over same-sex marriage to the government and political arena." - Chik-Fil-A's attempt to obfuscate the issue.

Get that? The OWNER and PRESIDENT of Chik-Fil-A opposes gay marriage and donates his Chik-Fil-A money to anti-gay organizations, but don't worry, because the cashiers won't refuse to serve you for being gay, or supporting gay marriage, and the company will somehow leave the debate up to the government and political arena it's trying to influence with its money. Got it?

Well, the Jim Henson company wasn't fooled, and they pulled their licensing deal for Muppet toys from the company. To which Chik-Fil-A responded with a complete fucking lie, putting signs up saying the toys had been recalled due to "safety concerns". The concern being that in an image fight with the Muppets, Chik Fil-A will end up choking. The chicken.

And then there's the mystery of Abby Farle, the 8-hour-old Facebook account that leapt to Chik-Fil-A's defense next to a profile picture of a smiling teenage girl that, within two hours, was revealed to be a stock photo.

Was it a Chik-Fil-A sok pupp-it? Chik Fil-A says it wasn't, and they don't know who did it, and really, if you can't trust Chik-Fil-A to tell the truth, whom can you trust at this point?

They want to have it both ways. They want to support unpopular causes, and still make money unhindered by the consequences of that support. American capitalism at its most "honest".